Recording a recent flashback – be warned, not a pleasant one.
August 27th 2023 Composed on an evening walk to Albion Sands.
65, I am.
It’s Sunday afternoon, and in this demanding garden the entertaining radio
Is midway between tea break and the pre-supper weather forecasts…
Suddenly, from where I know not, a heart-deep shock, sear of panic:
Oh dear Christ, it’s school tomorrow!
In that moment, 10 again: scab kneed, pudding haired, gut twisted.
School.
That smile-veneered establishment, ever nostalgic for war,
With its fascist to-fail-in-sport-is-to-fail-in-everything ruling culture based on fear.
Of bitter ill temper, permanent anger, unjustified punishment:
For most masters, scant exceptions, their constant and perennial weapons.
From the day’s first hard-flung blackboard rubber
There would reel on a typical timeline of
Edge-on Meccano across the knuckles, acid sarcasm,
Fingers or even heads under desk lids, wrenched ears and slaps,
Strip-until-you-get-it-right for boys who could never see their way to French.
No more compassion than camp commandants,
Even when a classmate died over Christmas.
And now let me say it, before the older-than-I amongst you do –
Yes, of course that method worked for me and most I knew!
Under fear’s cosh we slogged and learnt a lot:
Hardened to trench warfare cynicism we achieved so much so early, too early.
But surely we could have done as well
With a curriculum based not on cruelty, but kindness and encouragement?
And what of our fellows, less eloquent on the page and no fault of theirs,
Whom that phalanx of crow-gowned chalkdusted sadists
Assaulted every day with accusations of laziness?
Who were driven by perpetual bruising and beating to think themselves failures?
55 years ago, yes; but I’m sure there are fear factories thriving still:
Plenty in power, we know, for whom the end they champion justifies any means.
© Christopher Jessop 2023
